Sydney University Press 9781920898311 reviewed by Matthew Giles In his CAL/Meanjin essay of last year, Paul Daley argued that young Australians aren’t coerced by the state to think about their history in militaristic terms. He said that they do it on their own, because a militarised history is naturally more interesting. He was rebutting Marilyn […]

Disgrace JM Coetzee 9780099289524 Vintage (Aus, US) Disgrace is centred around David Lurie, a Romantic Poetry Professor at a Cape Town University, and an unapologetic lover of the firm, youthful, accommodating female form. He’s been married twice, and in the story satisfies his hunger with a prostitute, and then a student, becoming enamored with both […]

9780758209818, Kensington Fiction, 2008 (Aus, US) So it begins and ends with sex, and there’s a whole lot of juicy business in the middle, but Seduce Me also has an intriguing storyline and vivid, memorable characters. Megan Clark utilises the characters’ sexualities to round them out – desires, fulfillments, vulnerabilities and disappointments. Carissa has a […]

The Ice Age – Kirsten Reed I think, if I’d read this book between the ages of 14-17, it would be my favourite book. Not that it only has young adult appeal. I still found that the laid-back protagonist, who doesn’t seem particularly fazed most of the time to be on the road with a […]

Anais Nin’s stories in Delta of Venus (Aus/US) were intended for a specific male client but it is possible to detect a feminine presence in the writing. Lynette Felber (1995) suggests that Nin called herself a feminine writer but nonetheless, wanted to grasp the male reader in her projects with Henry Miller and her erotic […]

Humbert Humbert deceptively narrates a journey of self in Lolita (Nabokov 2006) attempting to justify actions that the reader may find morally problematic. He is both aware of the societally placed reader, whom he often refers to as judge or juror (eg. on the very first page) and he weaves a seductive lyrical web to entice […]

it was not the kiss of the spider-woman that led him to Giovanni’s room so small a thing as a boy climbing fairy mountain it was not ennui of cohabitation that led her to jiggery-pokery tongue-flicks on a jew’s harp unsheathed fingertips not mutated but heteronumerous a pastiche of emotivity breast by cheek by bone […]